Scribble Note
by maxdepax
Summary: Cam has several things to her name. She's got a love of stories and a fear of the ocean. She's got a knack for attracting the strange people in life. And she's got a notebook – but this one doesn't kill.
1. heyo!

**Heyo! This is going to be a little side-project for me, combining two things that I love a lot: Death Note and Scribblenauts. A bit strange, far as combos go, but well. I won't put this story as a crossover, though, because I don't think I'll be using the characters from the latter – just the concept.**

 **For those of you who don't know what Scribblenauts is: it's a word-based strategy game where you solve various problems using a special green notebook. This notebook can be used to create anything your imagination could dream up. Polka-dotted aquatic dragon? Write it down and you've got it. Evil knife-wielding sandwich? Go for it. The sky's the limit, right? Copies of the notebook are a thing, too – the main character's doppelganger has one – and for the sake of this story, I'm going to put some limits to what it can do because _yeesh_ is this thing a game-breaker.**

 **Where am I going with the plot? Well, let's see, right? I know only as much as you do.**

* * *

The notebook was not the original.

I'd had it for as long as I could remember, and it was scuffed and dog-eared the way a well-loved book should be – but it was finite. There was a fixed number of pages, like a normal book. And I would never believe that something so powerful would be so limited. Not like this, anyway.

Nobody knew what it really was, or how much damage it could do, and I preferred it that way.

Sitting with my legs crossed, pencil tapping against the desk, I waited for the test proctor to come in so we could begin the exam. To say that I was calm wasn't exactly true – this was the _To-Oh University_ entrance exam, for crying out loud – but at the same time, I didn't think I would _fail._

That, of course, was thanks to my notebook.

I should probably explain that a bit.

My book looked like it belonged to an elementary student, and I'd been teased for it from time to time – I understood, though. With its bright green cover and cartoonish yellow star, it did look like I was toting around an eight-year-old's school supplies.

It certainly didn't look like I was carrying maybe the most powerful artifact in the universe.

Here's how the book worked. Let's say I needed something very, very badly. Let's say I was having trouble understanding math and chemistry, and my future depended on my grades.

I would take a pencil, open the notebook – it was about three-quarters filled at this point because baby-me had no restraint – and scribble in three words.

 _'_ _Friendly, efficient tutor.'_

And with a poof, there he was – an older gentleman with books tucked under his arm, standing in my bedroom. And soon enough, I understood the curriculum well enough to be sitting at the To-Oh entrance exams without bursting into tears.

The only limit to the notebook's power was the number of pages it held – and my own vocabulary.

Now, I don't even recall why exactly I picked the thing up – I must have been six or seven years old. But it's been a part of my life since, in the way that most earthshaking secrets are.

Don't let that tidbit distract you from the fact that I'm a pretty average person, though. I like reading and cooking and sleeping and soccer. I'm afraid of the ocean and in love with space. I'm an only child. If not for the book, I'd actually probably be trying to get into some community college somewhere else: there's very little separating me from ninety percent of high school graduates.

I suppose, however, that that doesn't matter when you're actually in the process of getting into a prestigious university. At that point, how 'normal' you are doesn't mean jack.

I leaned forward onto folded arms to get a good look at the people in the room before we began. If I was an everyman, these people were, too – just a higher, more fortunate strain. I couldn't make out individual features beyond neutrally-colored suits and the occasional pair of glasses here and there. We were the same. I was the same.

The proctor swept into the room – brown suit, dark hair, like us but older – and immediately every person in the room sat up a little bit straighter, preparing for the nightmare that was the test.

I closed my eyes for a minute, imagining myself pulling all my years of knowledge together into a neat little box, ready to be opened – the little test-taking ritual I'd had since I was a kid.

As my eyes opened again and I blinked, someone called out,

"Student 162! Sit properly!"

The proctor's sudden reprimand came as a surprise to me, and I jumped in my seat. Was that me? How was I sitting? _Wait_ , the rational part of my mind chided. _Calm down. You're number 151. He's talking to the weird guy sitting in front of you, a bit to the left._

Yeah, it was obvious why _he_ got called out. His slim frame was pulled up into a crouch, and from what I could tell his feet were bare. This kid… I huffed out a breath somewhere between surprised and admiring. You had to have guts to show up to this thing like a total slob.

He – it was obvious – was not an everyman.

Of course, I know that there are bound to be some unusual people in the world, that it's not really anything to stare at. Logically, that makes sense.

But as the exam sheets were passed out and I scrawled my name at the top – _Cam Deneau_ – I couldn't help glancing at him from time to time.

Once, I even think he glanced back.


	2. oh, man

Here's the thing. Serial killers were always an interesting thing to me. There were always stories in their motives, their executions, their minds.

But when the serial killer in question had not only that, but a _completely_ unheard of ability to murder via heart attack? _That_ sealed my fascination – and, if I was honest, it scared me. A lot.

See, when I was a kid, and I lived with my dad, one of the consistent things in life was that he was scatterbrained and often forgot to provide basic things. Clothes, for example. Toiletries. Food. He wasn't a bad man by any means. He was just forgetful, focused on his writing, and I paid for that a lot of the time.

If I hadn't found my notebook all those years ago, I don't know what I would have done. The little-kid voice in my head that said _the notebook is just sitting there under a bush, all alone – it's okay for you to take it home_ … well, it saved my life.

I could still remember my chubby kiddo hands clutching a pencil, flipping the green book open.

 _If I write down shopping lists for dad_ , I thought, _he won't forget so much_.

I wrote, in shaky still-learning letters, _'bread.'_

And the loaf startled me out of my mind when it appeared out of thin air. That was one of the most vivid experiences I've ever had.

And from that year on, there was always food in the fridge, clean clothes to wear, soap to use. If there were any morally dubious factors to my usage of the notebook, you'll have to enlighten me there. I was keeping the house running, I was staying fed, and I wasn't stealing from anyone to do it. That's a good system right there.

What did this have to do with Kira, the crazy cardiac arrest murderer? Simple. _He_ had a weird ability to make impossible things happen. _I_ had a weird ability to make impossible things happen. But despite having this in common, we had completely opposite ideas when it comes to justice.

Feeding yourself and your father by conjuring things up, even though it's cheating, wasn't _wrong._ Murdering people, stopping their hearts, just because they screwed up big-time?

No. That was not okay. That was _never_ okay.

So I had been idly following the Kira thing for a while. It had become something of a hobby. His body count steadily rose and rose and rose, and I busied myself with the all-important question: _how is he doing that_?

Was he psychic? Was he poisoning the population and selectively picking people off?

Did he have a tool to help him, like I did?

He certainly didn't have _my_ notebook. Even though I was pretty sure that more than one existed, there was no way that it could kill a human being like that. The green book created _objects._ The only way to remove people would be to create something to do that, and that wasn't nearly efficient enough to explain the scores of death Kira was racking up.

Three months after the entrance exam, I cleaned myself up for the entrance ceremony. Pulling on a neutral-toned outfit that just screamed _well-adjusted_ , I locked the door to my tiny apartment, checking that I had my essentials with me. Phone, check. Wallet, check. Pen and notebook, check.

For things like this, I put effort into arriving semi-early, and half an hour later I was taking a seat in the second row from the stage. Perfect – I'd be able to watch the top student's speech in stunning detail. What more could a girl want?

Now, I'm not a dozer. I don't doze. I zone out, though, and against the droning from the stage and the dead silence from the crowd, there was nothing else to do. I drummed my fingers, thought of the stars, wondered if I could create a black hole with my book, and what that would do to life on this planet. _No, no,_ I chided myself. _You've got_ honor. _Only use the thing in a way that won't affect others._

It was the sudden whispers that brought me out of la-la land, and I looked up just as Light Yagami walked onstage – and he was followed by the strange kid from the exam, the one who couldn't sit properly and apparently didn't know how to stand up straight.

The people I sat with were free to express their opinions in hushed voices, and they generally followed the same pattern. _There are two top students? Wow, that Yagami looks like a sheltered genius. And the other kid? Hideki Ryuga? He looks nothing like the idol…_

The speeches were, to say the least, exactly what they should have been. Standard in content and syntax, but worded in such a way that even if you didn't know they were the top scorers, it would have been obvious in the way they spoke.

I slipped my notebook out of my coat pocket, tapping my fingers against it and half-listening to the droning from the stage. I hadn't anticipated how _boring_ this would get.

But… Ryuga. I liked his voice. It was flat, but smooth. Easy to listen to, but easy to tune out. Light's voice was manufactured, more suited to perhaps a famous singer or actor, someone who had everyone's eyes on him.

When they sat down, it was in front of me, and I had to credit myself for being so oblivious that I didn't notice they were there before.

This was the point where I messed up.

I was and had always been fidgety, see. My hands were never idle, and even at that moment, they were turning my book around, tapping the spine, the works.

I had never been particularly dexterous or graceful, though, and on one of my twirls, my fingers slipped, and my notebook fell.

Naturally, I leaned forward to grab it. Eavesdropping was _never_ the intention there.

But, of course, I couldn't _not_ hear it.

"I want to tell you – _I'm L_ ," Hideki Ryuga hissed at Yagami, and I froze.

I should have acted like I heard nothing, in hindsight, but I couldn't be sure that he'd buy that anyway.

As I retrieved the book and sat back up, Ryuga's voidlike eyes met mine, and held them long enough that I just knew that he knew that I'd heard him.

I could only think one thing: oh, _man_.

I was sweating. I knew I was sweating. I always broke into a cold sweat when I was nervous and that moment completely took the cake. What was I supposed to say? What did _anyone_ say when they accidentally overheard a very important secret?

I almost apologized. I was half a second from apologizing when, with no perceptible shift in expression, Ryuga turned his night-sky gaze away from me and back to Light.

I should have felt relieved.

Instead, I put my notebook into my bag, zipped it up, and placed shaking, clasped hands in my lap for the rest of the ceremony. No point ruining everything twice, right?

Cam, you might say. Chill out. He's not going to hunt you down or anything.

And that might have been true.

It _could_ have been true, if not for what happened after the ceremony. If not for the fact that Ryuga caught me as I tried to discretely slip home. I cursed under my breath. He'd been talking to Light, hadn't he? How did he catch up to me so fast?

"Ms. Deneau," he said quietly, looking me dead in the eyes, and gestured to the black Rolls-Royce sitting pretty on the curb. I gaped. "Please come with me. I wouldn't recommend making a scene, unless you'd like to be escorted in handcuffs."

Ah, jeez. He really was L, wasn't he?

* * *

 **Is this plot? Is this _plot?_ Wow.**


End file.
